


twenty one candles

by astarisms



Series: natan week 2019 [1]
Category: Satan and Me (Webcomic)
Genre: 21st birthday baby!, Bar, F/M, Fluff, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 09:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarisms/pseuds/astarisms
Summary: natalie has only one wish on her birthday.





	twenty one candles

He doesn’t know what it is about tonight, but he can’t keep his eyes off of her. 

She sways to the music until Laila presses another drink into her hand, and Natalie grins at her before lifting the glass to her lips and downing the shot. She makes a face at the taste and Laila laughs, leaning in to shout something in her ear. 

Natalie nods, waving her away, and the moment Laila disappears back into the crowd, she looks around the crowded bar until her eyes land on him. 

She’s already drunk — the flush on her cheeks and the ungraceful way she moves gives her away. It’s not surprising, since it’s her 21st and her friends have been passing drinks and encouraging shots for hours before they had even left for the bar they were currently in. 

The appeal of celebration on this particular date is lost on him, since her and all of her friends have had alcohol long before any of them turned 21, but they all seem tickled pink by the fact that their entire group is nearly legal.

And if Natalie is having a good time, he thinks she might deserve it, even if he wouldn’t admit as much to her out loud. 

Her eyes haven’t left him since they found him, and now she beckons him to join her on the dance floor. His lips twitch and he tries to force himself back into impassivity, shaking his head as her gestures grow increasingly wild until she huffs and starts toward him, no doubt ready to pull him into the fray herself. 

The fact that he knows she might very well get her way doesn’t quite fill him with dread anymore, just a quiet exasperation. Saying no to her has proved more trouble than it’s worth. If he knows that part of it is that he can make her happy by agreeing, well, he keeps that to himself.

She has too much power over him already.

Natalie finally shoves through the last bit of tightly pressed bodies — Lucifer doesn’t miss the way some people’s gazes linger, and he tenses — until she’s before him, all glassy eyes and bright smiles and red cheeks. 

“Lucifer,” she says in the slur he expects, grabbing for his hands and tugging, though he doesn’t budge. “Dance with me.”

“I don’t dance.”

She pouts, with half the charm she usually does now that she’s plastered. She steps closer to him, until they’re chest to chest and she can pull his arms around her. 

“Please? It’s my birthday. I get…” she stops, as if she’s counting in her head, and then brightens, “21 wishes! I wish for you to dance with me.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, amused despite himself, and lets his hands settle on her back, his thumbs sweeping the open stretch of skin between the hem of her top and the waistband of her skirt. She shivers involuntarily, leaning further into him, though he doesn’t flatter himself with thinking that particular move is anything more than her using him as a crutch to prop herself up. 

“Even I know there are a lot of things wrong with that.”

Natalie doesn’t disagree, but she does reach up to wrap her arms around his neck, giving him what he’s sure she thinks are persuasive puppy dog eyes. 

“I’m not even sure you can dance right now,” he says, sweeping an eye over her. His gaze lingers a little too long, and he feels her fingers curl into his hair. He forces his eyes back up to hers. “You can barely stand on your own.” 

“_Duh_, silly,” she exclaims, like it should be obvious. “That’s why I’m not asking to dance by myself, I’m asking you to dance _with_ me.”

“Forgive me.” His voice is dry, but Natalie doesn’t pick up on it, instead dropping to nuzzle her head in the crook of his neck. She melts against him, and he tightens his arms around her to keep her upright.

“—forgiven,” he catches her mumble, though only barely, her voice muffled in his skin and the noise of the bar making it difficult to catch. “Always forgiven.” He looks down at her, and resents how he can’t help the softening of his own expression.

He is disgusted with himself, for how soft she’s made him, but he can’t find the will to summon it right now. 

“—smell good,” he hears, on the tail of her inhaling, and he thinks about how four years ago he might have been offput by the action but it’s so typically Natalie that now he doesn’t even bat an eye at the odd things she does. For a second, he even thinks she’s forgotten about why she’d come to him in the first place, and he tries to take advantage of it.

“And you reek of booze, kid,” he says, dipping his head so he doesn’t have to yell but she can still hear him. “Maybe it’s time to go home and—”

“No!” The answer is so quick and vehement, not even slurred, that it stuns him for a moment. She raises her head to glare at him. “Dance first.”

He sighs, because he’s already lost. He knew the moment she caught his eyes that he had lost, because this was Natalie and after all she’s done for him, all she’s sacrificed for him, all the little things she asks for seem infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things. 

He knows before she asks that he would give her one dance or a hundred if that was what it took to keep her happy, but he has to keep up appearances regardless.

She is still glaring, unwilling to back down on this, and he leans forward to speak into her ear again. 

“One dance,” he says firmly. “That’s it, and then we’re going home before you really do fall over or puke all over the place.”

He pulls back, trying to keep his expression impassive, so she knows he’s serious, but her smile is so disarmingly bright that he falters. 

“Okay,” she agrees, even though he’s not convinced she heard what he said at all beyond agreeing to a dance. She pulls back and grabs his hands again, pulling him back into the crowd, grinning all the while.

And even though she’s drunk and sloppily so, even though she can’t keep a beat to save her life, even though her words are slurred and her already abysmally low inhibitions lowered even further, Lucifer can’t help the warmth that spreads in him everywhere she touches. 

Because she’s still smiling at him with the smile she reserves for him alone, and she raises up on her toes to kiss his cheek. The stench of alcohol on her breath is nearly overwhelming, but he feels her lips curve against his face, hears her whisper “happy birthday to me” to herself as if he were the best present she could’ve asked for.

And he knows, without doubt, that he is hers. 


End file.
